Web-Based Play Store Redesigned

Google has just redesigned the web-based version of its Play Store in order to match the Android app’s design. And while the Android app really looks great, I find it hard to say the same thing about the web version. There are a lot of things that look really bad, including the fonts and some bugs.

The website is now fluid, meaning that it’s using the entire width of your monitor, no matter how wide it is. And this is a good thing, considering that most websites leave a lot of blank space on the sides (including ours). Ir now has both a sidebar on the left and a top menu.

The left sidebar seems pretty useless to me and it also looks really weird. It only has a few buttons. I believe they could have fit everything in the top menu to make it simpler. Once you click on an app, the top menu disappears and you’re out of a lot of options, so you have to go back if you want to navigate to categories, for example.

It’s now using the Roboto font more and it’s not that easy to read, especially when in smaller sizes. Along with the small size, there’s black on a grey background, which is also a pretty bad thing for UX.

I don’t know about others, but for me it’s pretty bugged. I live in Romania, but have set all Google services to use English. But this doesn’t keep the Play Store from using title in Romanian, English and German, all on the same page.

When I click “My apps” it takes a lot to load and it gives me the impression that the browser’s going to crash, as nothing happens. Even the loading animation gets stuck and this is because it loads all of the apps I’ve ever installed on one page.

As a conclusion, I really don’t like the new design and I feel like they could have done a much better job. My biggest complaint is the font used, which I feel really hard to read. Just take a look at app descriptions and ratings and let me know if you don’t feel the same.